


Pygmalion's Dilemma

by rosekay



Category: These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, F/M, Gender Issues, Gender Roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of <i>These Old Shades</i>. Léonie decides she doesn't want to give up being Léon. Satanas finally has to settle for an untidy solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pygmalion's Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Colourofsaying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colourofsaying/gifts).



"So you see, Monseigneur," said the child very seriously, "it will not do."

Alastair was unaccustomed to refusal, particularly from someone whom he had considered wholly his creature. But she held her proud little head up quite high, so that he remembered keenly the effect of those Titian curls against the apple-green silk that Fanny had conjured up the very first time that Léon had become Léonie, and how creamy her long throat had been beneath properly dressed hair, how neat her figure. Though now, her carriage was, if anything, even more erect than it had been when she had been arrayed like a fine lady. She made, as he saw now, a rather beautiful boy, slim and firm and free-moving in a manner that the more modish doves of the season, with their delicate airs and missish sighs, could not touch. With her color up, and fine mouth pressed firm as it was now, she made them all lambs.

"Oh!" said Fanny, who disliked theater outside of the confines of her particular worries. She was pale beneath her blush, real agita in her eyes. "Devilish child!" The empty space of what else she likely wanted to say loomed large in the room.

Alistair looked a request at Rupert, who shut his mouth on whatever foolishness he'd been on the verge of ejaculating, and put a firm hold on his sister's arm, guiding her out of the room. Léonie did not speak again until the last periwinkle flounce disappeared around the corner. He did not know where she had found her old page's raiment, but it was neatly cut and elegant as he remembered when picking out each item. She had no diamonds in her hair, or a charming neckline to set off the grace of her little shoulders, but the relative shabbiness of her breeches and precisely buttoned jacket only set off the irresistible dimple that still winked at him, the extraordinary eyes beneath her dark brows. No white rose, or even a golden one, she was now something more austere, all the steel beneath that daring on display, like the finest of his blades.

"That pig-person," she spat out, "thought he could threaten _me_." Even her voice seemed a little more resonant now that the anger had risen in it, with the high, clear quality of a boy on the cusp of being grown. That had never been one of Alastair's particular vices, but Léon's determination fluttered against the normally unshakable bastion of his reserve. He was a man for beautiful women, but he could see in Léon the devilish appeal of a comely Ganymede. The thought made his hand tighten spasmodically. It was no little thing, the force of a youth's devotion, enough to make even a strong man waver in his control.

"Monseigneur, I am yours, and very fond of Fanny, but bah! I do not like these parties and soft men. How they simper, incroyable! I was loved more as a page."

"My dear," he said, eyes lidded as when he was in deep consideration of something, one long, pale hand reaching for his snuff, "you are the toast of the season, an unqualified success."

"Softness is nicer, I think, in a girl."

Alastair raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

That brought a ringing laugh that echoed gaily in the room, only a very slight sliver of bitterness underneath it. He had not thought that his infant knew anything that would sound so old.

"The girls," said the child with a grin that made him obscurely guilty, "they like a boy with clever fingers."

The Duke felt something tighten in his throat. "And when would these ladies have had a chance to know your--clever fingers?"

"Girls, not ladies. Monseigneur, do you not remember how your staff so loved me in France? The abigails are obliging with a pretty page."

He sympathized with the plight of fruit being peeled, a slow realization of agony imparted, a coldness endured, exquisite. The worst of it was that the image was not unpleasant, Léon’s slim form entwined with the silly softness of a house girl, how such a girl, maybe fresh from the country, her bloom of beauty come sooner, would love upon a comely page, open her legs like a fig ripe to the point of splitting. Léon had ever been a sharp instrument, unerring when it came to a cut.

“My child,” he said very carefully, so that his voice did not tremble with rage that he could not quite define. “I think you are provoking me with intent.”

“Monseigneur,” said the little blade, whose color was up so that cheeks warred with fiery hair in a blaze. “Do you not see how unworthy I am? I am not fit for your world.”

“You have Paris at your feet, my dear.”

“Through a lie, Monseigneur!” The brows trembled now, a line in the fine jaw tightening. “I--I have gone to see that pig-person, the Comte, and I must go. You cannot have a common base-born girl in your house.”

Avon could count on one hand the times in his life that he had been truly shocked--his Léon seemed to account for an uncomfortable percentage of these. He had had his plans in place since the very dear Comte had gone through with his abduction, and it was a surprise to see the heart of those plans herself hurrying them along unnecessarily.

“Infant, have a care, you do not know the whole truth.”

“But I do!” The child’s velvety eyes flashed here. “And I suppose I must thank that pig-person for opening my eyes. Voyon! I am not fit for your house. I never was. I have been alone in a great city too long. Monseigneur, you told me I was never to go with you to a place like Vauxhall again, but don’t you see? I _enjoyed_ such places.”

“You are young--” began the Duke.

“Let me finish!” There was no fear in the pale face, only determination. “Even the plodding Vicomte is more interesting at a place such as that, not paying me comments like an imbécile, as if all his books had been empty.”

“You are infinitely above him,” returned Alastair, incensed and unprepared, a truly unusual combination.

“I am not,” Léon declared. “He has read--bah--many things I do not even know! And had fine masters, and--will be the Comte de Saint-Vire!”

The child did not even know the battle that she was ceding over to the farmer’s son. When he looked down, his knuckles were white as marble, the bone rising against thin skin. It would be difficult to regain himself. He rose, and the child quaked back instinctively. He took her, a little ungently, by the dear little chin, the wide eyes flying up to his.

“ _You_ are the true child of the Comte, not that farmer.”

“Monseigneur, you do not know!”

“Quiet, child, that damnable temper of yours is clouding what is in front of you.”

“Bah,” said the page, for that is what she looked right now. “It has already ruined me. The farmer is gently bred, and I am not, you see.” A little grin that circled the charming dimple showed through, but it was a grin that had teeth, the worried pulse of a desperate beast. “And, I suppose, he is the Comte now. I am only Léon, the page.”

“The Comte!”

She wrested herself away from him, so that the memory of warm flesh was only that, a ghost of a touch on his fingertips. He looked in shock at the little golden pistol she produced.

“My last duty to you, Monseigneur--I will always be yours, but I must go, you see? I would have liked my knife better, but your enemy is gone, and I will be quite dead if I do not fly.”

“You--”

He could barely force the words past his throat, shock taking him like a cold bath. He wanted for the end of the dream, but it did not come.

It was Léon who looked back at him, fierce and beautiful, the frippery all shorn from him. “He would have ruined you, and with me! I could not let him.”

“My child, you do not know what you have done.”

“But I do, Monseigneur, I have saved us. Even the farmer would have honored the girls I have ruined. I am all wicked.” Alastair looked at the little hand, white and elegant, a seemingly rakish cast to it now that Léon had revealed himself so thoroughly. “It is better this way,” and there again the grin, “for the pig-person cannot hurt you, and I may live my wicked life.”

The pistol did not waver, though he could see from the loose grip that the little devil had no intention of firing it. Still, the intent spoke strongly enough. There would be no turning back.

“Monseigneur, will you let me go?”

The child stood before him, straight as a poplar. Léon would not lack for companions if he took to the Continent and disappeared. He knew a little of his way with a pistol and a blade, had learned the ways of a gentleman’s household and a gaming room both. Alastair saw now that the fire that ran beneath the child’s skin was closer to his own than that of any well-bred young lady--it was what had drawn his attention in the first place, but perhaps it was a dangerous flame with which to play. Saint-Vire had already seen the truth of that. He took the little hand to his cold lips.

“Then I will mourn the lovely Léonie, my child.”

Those provoking eyes turned to him, wise and foolish and grateful all at once. He could not say what burned in his breast at that moment.

“And she will mourn you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This diverges from the canon after Léonie's confrontation with her father and opens up a different future in a very different world for her. I hope this worked with the spirit of the request in the way that it handles her relationship with Alastair. Thank you for a wonderful prompt and enjoy. :)


End file.
